Career Issues Pertaining to Teaching Introductory Biostatistics in a Medical Center

Teaching introductory biostatistics in an academic medical center to nonstatisticians can be rewarding, but it can pose several unanticipated challenges with respect to time, career trajectory, and career development.

An academic medical center environment, typically comprised of multiple schools or colleges, offers unique opportunities for multi- and cross-disciplinary research and educational experiences. Many medical disciplines (e.g., oncology) have widely adopted and heavily rely on expertise that statisticians offer to collaborative research (with respect to sample size and power, trial design, and implementation) and increasingly acknowledge that developments in statistical methodology lead to more efficient and robust research.